Olympiad XXX Tennis: Serena Wins Singles Gold!

Serena Williams won her first Gold Medal in singles by demolishing 4-time major champion Maria Sharapova 6-0 6-1 in an awe-inspiring display of overwhelming power and devastating accuracy that lasted just over an hour.

As I predicted yesterday, Serena extended her domination over Sharapova by winning their eighth match in a row, extending her career had-to-head lead to 9 wins, 2 losses. Serena hit 24 winners to a mere 7 errors, including 10 aces, breaking her opponent at will. For example, at 0-5 down Sharapova went up 40-0 and Serena proceeded to hit return winner after return winner and after the Russian double faulted to give the American a breakpoint which was also a (bagel) set point, Serena claimed the first set after an exciting exchange at the net.

Sharapova did not play her best tennis, but there really was not much she could do because Serena was moving so well. Sharapova hit 1 ace to 5 double faults, and 10 unforced errors to only 6 winners. She had two breakpoints on Serena's serve at 1-3 to get the match back on serve but Serena wiped them away with two big first serves and never looked back.

Serena was a woman on a mission, hitting winners silently from every corner of the court. She made 3 vocalizations during the match, a "come on!" when she broke Sharapova to go up 2-0 in the second set and then when she saved her first breakpoint 3 games later. Then at the end of the match after she served an ace on match point she let out a very loud and long primal scream as she completed the Golden career slam, the second woman to do it after the great Steffi Graf.

In the Bronze medal match, current World #1 Victoria Azarenka of Belarus beat Maria Kirilenko 6-3 6-4 to win her first Olympic medal. Serena and her sister Venus will be going for their third Gold medal in doubles after they play their semifinal against Kirilenko and Nadia Petrova and the Czech team in the final.

At this rate, I would not be surprised if Serena is #1 before the US Open starts in 3 weeks, but she has quite a number of points to defend during the American hard court summer season. But really it's a question of when, not if, Serena will be at the top of the rankings in women's tennis again.